New Year wishes

Okay...so it's been a long time since I updated this...I swear I'm getting worse. There was halloween with the kids; that was great. We (the foreign teachers) were paid to make a haunted house. Where I work we have a small jungle gym that we created into a maze with some spots for various horrors (I was a jack-in-a-box with the face of the Joker). Then we got told we had to make the Kids cry. Trust me, after listening to the kids try and call you idiot in Korean...thinking you don't know...or even worse; swearing, it's nice to see them freak out over a few scary monsters in a very dark room. Our supervisor came down at lunchtime and told us that not enough kids were crying and we had to make it scarier. What was a bonus was some of the kids dropped their candy on the floor when they freaked out...and they wouldn't come back in to collect it. Yum Yum.

After the games were over we got the good news of extra work in the form of project lessons. Basically we have to teach the children about the earth and continents, countries, cities, people, animals, climate, buildngs, food...culture, etc. Which is fine, but the classes are shared with a Korean teacher so we are supposed to work together. Unfortunatly (as much as I love my Korean co-teacher) the usual response I get from her is 'right' and 'okay'. Her english is minimal, although much much better than my Korean. But it makes organising a lesson hard...but never mind.

Christmas wasn't that special, it's not a big thing in Korea, just like the new year (although i've been told that the Lunar New Year is somethin else) but I spent time with friends having a traditional western christmas dinner and it snowed!!!! It snowed alot and it's been so cold that the snow's still around.

Anyway, as the new year is just around the corner I made a list of things I want to do whilst I'm out here...one was to travel more independantly, the other was to knuckle down and learn Korean, as well as the usual saving money, keeping healthy, etc.

So, tomorrow I am going to Seoul on my own, to do a bit of sightseeing around the palaces, gardens and parks. I just prey that I don't get lost in that city and that I manage to navigate my way around the subway, but i'm not really that worried.